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Previewing The Sinquefield Cup (4): Can Nakamura Beat Carlsen?

Previewing The Sinquefield Cup (4): Can Nakamura Beat Carlsen?

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Waldemar
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In a previous article Previewing The Sinquefield Cup (3): Can Caruana Beat Carlsen?, I discussed the likelyhood of Caruana beating Carlsen during the upcoming Sinquefield Cup. In this follow-up I want to take a look at the number four on the starting list, Hikaru Nakamura.

Statistics

In the database I found 25 encounters in classical chess between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. In the overall head to head Nakamura is clearly the underdog, sofar he scores only 30%. What's more, he has yet to beat Carlsen in a classical game, whereas Carlsen has beaten Nakamura no less then ten times!

Last Encounter

The last encounter in a classical game between the two was during the Gashimov Memorial earlier this year. I will annotate the game below.

 

Considering their head to head count and and the fact that Carlsen seems a bit of an Angstgegner for Nakamura, I don’t think it is likely that the American is going to be a serious threat yet to Carlsen during the Sinquefield Cup. On the other hand, there is a first time for everything, isn't there?

To be continued…


Waldemar Moes
Chess Trainer, Lecturer and Blogger
www.betteryourchess.com
"down-to-earth advice for he aspiring chess player"